Well, well, well... what surprising news! We found out that Marcos' mother is expecting another child. This will be child number eight. I do know families in the area they are from have many children... there are a few reasons, one of which being lack of education on how to prevent pregnancies... but the main reason is because families here think it is very good to have large families... even if they are struggling to get by.

In more developments, I've found out that both of Marcos' younger siblings are now attending pre-school. This is very good news! I am thinking neither of them are most likely sponsored... if you are interested in sponsoring either or both children, please let me know - I will let you know what you need to do to make this happen. :)

Now that all of the children are in school, all will be able to eat while they are there!

José is 13 years old. His birthday is December 18th. He was supposed to be in 3rd grade in 2009 but unfortunately he did not register in time and he will have to wait until next year.

Jose lives in a small town called Xeabaj Segundo de Chichicastenango. He lives with his mother Maria, 30 years old.

His father abandoned the family 6 months ago. They don't know where he is.

José has 3 brothers and 1 sister. They are:

Tomas is 9 years old. His birthday is December 5th. He was in first grade in 2008. He was supposed to start second grade in 2009 but did not register in time and he will have to wait until next year.

Juan Carlos is 6 years old. He is not in school yet.

Sebastian is 4 years old.

Ana María is 2 years old.

Jose and his mother sell typical clothing in the streets of Chichicastenango and Panajachel. Some days they make $8-10 USD and some others nothing.

They own the house they live in.They have 1 room and one kitchen.It is make of mud brick, tin roof and dirt floor.They do not have a water filter.They do not have an Onil stove. The mother cooks on an open fire on the floor.They have 2 beds made of wooden planks.They do not have enough blankets.They have one table and 3 wooden chairs.They have a pila.They have electricity connected and pay $6 USD per month.They have water connected and pay $2 USD per month.

The money that they make is not enough to cover their expenses. Their main diet is beans, herbs, pasta and eggs. When they do not have enough money for that they only eat tortillas with salt.

Patti Mort, with Mayan Families has found this little boy for us! This is fantastic news. Our family will be sponsoring him, we sent in money for his sponsorship, as well as money for emergency food for his family... here's a copy of the email that Patti wrote to me...~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

His family got in touch and he appeared at my door yesterday afternoon with his mother, the baby in the picture and two other street venders from his area who could write, thank goodness, as neither he nor his mother can and to take down names in Quiche is difficult for me.

What I found out so far is he is 13 years old and suppose to be in 2nd grade but not going to school because his family cannot afford to send him. His name is Jose Zut Tebelan and he is from a small area on the other side of Chichicastenango called Canton Sheabaj Primero.

The family is coming back to my house on Monday morning at 11 so I can take them up to Mayan Families to get their data and register him with a number. Is it alright with you if I give your email address and name and say you will be sponsoring him? That way they will contact you about it.

You should have seen his eyes light up when I asked if he would like to go to school. He also asked if his younger brother could go as well. I said we can start with him and see where it goes.

He must have made an impression on you for you to continue to look for him. Miracles happen all the time around here and you have just helped create another one.

We still want to raise money to build a home for Oscar. Things have been very busy here, hopefully within the next couple of weeks I can buckle down to get those funds raised! :) I will keep you updated. :)

BTW, I think I've been in North Carolina too long.... I just re-read what I wrote above and think I added a little southern accent. LOL!

This past weekend, we were given terrible news about little Veronica... please read the following article. Please be aware, the article is very - very sad and graphic. Veronica is now in a much better place. Candace, one of my traveling partners in our 2008 trip to Guatemala fell in love with Veronica right away.... the following letter is from Sharon, of the organization we went down to visit.

In Loving Memory of a Murdered Child2/16/2009

I have been really having a hard time since I heard this news. Ifeel like someone has kicked a hole in my heart. Veronica, was one of our sponsored students last year. Her mother came to us for help to get a replacement for her own false leg. Everyone told us that the mother was very physically abusive to this child. That she did not feed her, there were rumors that she was selling her. She would bring men back to the room where she was living and leave them alone with the child. There was no proof. We offered to help the mother so as to be able to help thechild.

We found a very loving person who wanted to sponsor Veronica. She met Veronica, she fell in love with her. Veronica was so excited to go to school. She had never been. She was 8yrs old.

She went to school for two days and her mother came to the school and withdrew her.She told us that the teachers were mean to Veronica. The teachers told us that the mother had mental problems, that Veronica was a sweet girl who was really happy to be at school.

We found out that when Veronica was 2 or 3 yrs old that the mother had tied her up to the beams of the roof and beaten her badly. The court had photos of her badly bruised little body. She was taken to hospital. There was nowhere to send her so they kept at the hospital. The mother, who had been arrested, paid someone off, got out of jail and went to the hospital and took the child home.

There had been many complaints made against the mother, the court had a thick file on her.When we heard that it was rumored again that she was being prostituted by the mother, we had a social worker file papers asking the court to remove Veronica from the mother and award custody to me. There was no one else that wanted her. Veronica's father had re-married and he was scared of the mother, she was capable of coming to the house and being very violent with his new wife and family. The judge called in the mother, she denied everything, they said that it would be better to remove the child, the police had a warrant to go to her home but she was always moving around, they couldn't find her. We were very frustrated that they gave herthe warning that they would take the child from her custody. She then moved out of the area and no one could find her.

Saturday night , little Veronica was raped , sodomized and murdered at a village around Lake Atitlan, The social worker who came to tell me , said that her little body had been torn up. Shewas just 9yrs old, the size of little 7 yr old. She was so little. Her mother says that she was drunk, that she doesn't know what happened.

Even though, logically, I know this wasn't my fault, I still feel like I let her down.

This poor little girl had a terrible life, she was starved and beaten by the one person in the world who was supposed to love her.

The children and I sent out two totes - one for Marcos and one for Oscar.

In each tote we packed as much as we could possibly fit. Washrags, work gloves, pitcher, kool-aide, black beans, book bags for each boy, water bottle, plastic cups, large spoon/ladle, gum, candy,each boy will receive an "American Football."

I am excited for the boys and cannot wait until they are able to open their totes! :)

Our family will be participating on a mission trip to Guatemala this summer.

We will need to raise a total of $8,000 for the trip.

It would seem impossible if we did not have God on our side...

We will be doing quite a bit of work on our 8 day stay. Our family will participate in a drama five times a day for three days throughout the country of Guatemala as well as many other wonderful things for our 8 days in Guatemala.

We will be going with the ACMA Christian Martial Arts Team... we are so excited to go, and know that God will bless all involved! If you go to the ACMA link, you can see pictures from their 2008 Guatemala mission trip!

If you would like to donate towards the mission trip, please click the donate button to the right of the page.

Great news for Rafael, a family has sponsored him and I'm so happy! I let Sharon from Mayan Families know that I would sponsor him again if no one else did... money has been a little tight - especially with my husband getting ready to medically retire in the near future. I am so happy someone has sponsored him. We will continue to pray for him, and to send him gifts sometimes.

I wanted to share this wish list with you all. :) If you'd like to participate in collecting and sending items, please let me know via email. This post is for Sharon from Mayan Families. I wrote her to ask her what items they need most. The shipment will take place around the end of February, 2000.

Hi Patti, thank you for asking.....of course....there are few things that we can always do with.

We are hoping to get the pre-school children sponsored in Tierra Linda to be able to open the pre-school.......it is something that we are just starting to work on now but we hope that it will come to fruition.

There is a young woman teacher there who has not been able to get a job and it would be perfect for her and for the community.....so we need the same kind of things that we had for San Jorge for Tierra Linda, ...we need educational toys, crayons, coloring books, art materials, a C.D. player, a DVD player, we still need a good second hand t..v for San Jorge preschool so that we can show the kids DVD's occassionally , also one for Tierra Linda, teaching supplies, craft supplies.

We would like to have computers for both schools if anyone has ones that are usable, also laptops.

We need durable plastic dishes, plates and cups for both pre-schools, ( ie: Corelle non breakable dishes from garage sales would be great - doesn't matter colors or patterns) any fun wall hangings, we need pots and pans for both centers, spoons, forks etc.

We would love to have any rugs that the children could play on.

Books in Spanish, music CD's , spanish and english.

Apart from that we need school supplies, backpacks, blankets, sheets, towels, cardigans,

socks, underwear ( clean second hand is fine) training bras for the young girls, bras for older women, once again, all these items second hand are just fine.

We need blenders that we could use for the centers and to be able to have women start a little business. We could definitely do with a Champion Juice extractor because we would like to start making peanut butter that we can have for the children to eat at the pre-schools and also to sell, maybe something that high school students could do.

Any educational computer games would be great.....we are so lucky that we have a computer whizz coming to volunteer for a few months and he is bringing a few computers from Canada....we are setting up a computer lab ( above the office in what is now our storage area) and David will be working there teaching some of the students from San Jorge, Panajachel and Tierra Linda how to use computers etc. ...we will also have Marco there translating for him into Kakchiquel. This is going to be wonderful for the students from Tierra Linda who have no access whatsoever to computers.

Thank you so much for all the generosity from this group , we now have enough computers in the office!!! YAY!!!! No more computer sharing....it is so wonderful!!! Thank you mil veces.

For the animal program we need small to med. dog collars, leashes, flea powder.

For the sewing program, we need fabric materials, scissors, thread and of course, sewing machines!!

We can always use medical supplies such as over the counter meds, we need blue sheets for bedridden patients or plastic sheeting,

Disposable diapers for adults and babies.

Cloth diapers

Shoes, shoes and more shoes, we especially need sizes for older children but there is never a pair of shoes that goes to waste so whatever you have we will be able to use.

Jeans for boys...especially boys in 8-15yr old age group but once again, any size will be put to good use.

We need calculators, glue , colored markers, play dough, just about anything that you can think of ...we can use it.

Warm sweaters, rain jackets, rain boots, baby blankets, fold up umbrellas, flashlights, all these things will go to great use.

Many, many thanks to those of you who are thinking of sending donations!

About Us

In the beginning of 2008 is when our love for the people of Guatemala began. It all started out by sponsoring one little boy, Marcos and lead to us sponsoring three boys in 2008 so they would have school supplies for school.
Not only did we make a difference in their education, but in their home life. We were able to ensure that all three families have onil stoves and water filters.
We were able to have a cement floor put into Marcos home and we are now raising money to build a home for Oscar.
God lead us into their lives for a purpose.
Patti & her son were able to visit the boys in May of 2008 and will be returning with their whole family again in 2009.
Not only have we been able to make an impact on the three families - but we have begun to reach out to the community.
Patti is now the Ministry Outreach Coordinator and secretary for Guatemalan Harvest.
If it were not for our friends and family, all of the wonderful things we have been able to do would not be possible. Thank you, for helping us help others!